


Insights.

by scrantonstrangler



Series: Expiration Dates. [2]
Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Here we go, In which Jim is pining and pathetic, It's getting more depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:10:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrantonstrangler/pseuds/scrantonstrangler
Summary: Pam sets a date for her wedding. Jim decides to leave the country. Healthy coping mechanisms abound.





	Insights.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post this. I've been extremely sick and haven't had the motivation to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. The end of this one is where the canon divergence begins. :)

“I’m boring myself just talking about it.” He can hear it in his voice—the ennui, the disdain, and he already knows how the camera will play him: the great American tragedy, a likeable guy who rots at a desk working a job he hates. The truth is it’s not such a bad place. Sure, Michael is an ass and Dwight constantly grates at already-raw nerves, but Jim has friends here, and even if it’s pathetic, his conversations with Pam get him through the day. All he can hope is that the documentary crew doesn’t pick up on his hangdog expression too quickly, but with his frequent trips to reception, he knows that’s a long shot. 

Maybe a project will help.

All it takes is a $1.00 packet of lime Jell-O and a moment alone with Dwight’s desk and Jim has concocted a perfect plan. It’s a tried and tested way to get under his clump-mate’s skin. And, of course, he absolutely deserves it.

When Stanley walks in and sits at the table behind him, Jim smiles, amicable.

“Oh hey, Stanley. I’m just—“

“Don’t care,” comes the grumble from the corner, and Jim just nods, rueful. 

A couple hours in the fridge and the trap is set, and soon enough, he has the pleasure of watching Dwight’s unique features twist into an expression of disproportionate rage.  
Pam’s accompanying laughter bubbles, effervescent, in his chest.

***************************

“Oh, it’s sad. It’s so sad,” she’s giggling, and it gives him a sick sort of satisfaction that he can make her laugh like that anytime he wants. But that satisfaction sits, glutinous, in his stomach, and he has to walk away before he says anything else he’ll regret. They give Dwight the thumbs up before Jim slips away, shoulders dipped, hands in his pockets.  
When he walks into the conference room, he’s not sure what he’s expecting. Katie is cute, she laughs at his jokes, and her smile blooms on her face easily—no secrets behind those straight teeth. Though he doesn’t care anything about the purses, he nods along, hand under his chin like he’s pondering every piece of information she gives him. She absolutely knows that he’s being facetious, but the game is fun, lighthearted, and he feels nothing. There’s no spark in his chest; he knows, objectively, that her hair is beautiful, and her face is kind, and her skin is pale and smooth and he just doesn’t care.

He asks her out anyway.

***************************

The dartboard has done nothing to incur his wrath, but he’s hurling the darts as hard as he can anyway, and they tremble once they pierce the felt. Katie’s sipping some kind of pink concoction and standing nearby, laughing with the woman who’s sitting next to her while they both watch Jim attack the target with some hidden frustration. It’s pointless. Even if he wanted it to work it wouldn’t work. Not ever.

He tells her he’ll call her; he doesn’t.

***************************

Pam’s sitting in his bedroom and he has to remind himself that no, this isn’t a dream, because why on Earth would his own brain torture him with the high of Pam in his bedroom and the low of Dwight inspecting his bathroom all in the same fantasy. She’s laughing at his yearbook. It’s not a particularly bad picture of him (there are several ones he knows are worse), but she’s laughing at him, and he doesn’t care, because the dim light of his bedroom has thrown half her face into shadow and he hopes he’ll remember this exact moment forever.

***************************

For Christmas, he buys her a teapot. Into the teapot he places several little things that constantly remind him of her, pocket-sized reminders of his ridiculous infatuation. It takes him several days to get up the courage to write in the card. At first he thinks he might write a simple message, a little Merry Christmas pleasantry that would be indistinguishable from something he might write to Meredith or Creed. 

What comes out is something else entirely.

Before he can second guess himself he seals the envelope, writes her name on the front. Christmas is a time for miracles, after all. Maybe if he hopes hard enough Santa will bring him the only gift he wants.

In the end, he can’t do it. But her grin is enough to keep him warm through December, even when he tucks away the card, for a day when he feels a little bolder.

He sincerely hopes she washes the teapot like four times before she uses it. It was in Dwight’s nostril.

Merry Christmas.

***************************  
“Hey… Katie?” For some reason, it’s framed as a question, even though he knows she hasn’t changed the number. It’s a place filler, a hesitation, a way to ask if he’s allowed to call her without actually having to pose the question.

“Hello.” Her reply is cold, detached, and Jim knows he deserves it. He rubs the back of his head. Is there a good way to ask? Should he strike up a conversation first? Pretend he cares what answer she gives him?

“Look, I know I haven’t called. I’m really sorry about that. But we have a… Well, I’d call it a work retreat, but you know Michael. It’s highly unlikely we’ll be doing any work.” That gets him a tight laugh. “It’s a cruise on Lake Wallenpaupak. It’s gonna be freezing cold but I think it could be fun.”

A few hours later and he’s picking her up; they joke the whole way to the boat and at one point she even takes his hand. It’s a breeze. She’s still simple, easy to decipher, an unfamiliar flash of crimson against the black of the sky. He wishes so badly that he could care about that. He wishes that spark of color could ignite something in his chest to burn away the lump of ice that currently resides. 

They have fun and he finds out she used to be a cheerleader and maybe he’s a little bit tipsy. In her drink floats a cherry, which she eats slowly, staining her lips red, and he should want to kiss them and taste the tart bite of the fruit mixed with whatever it is she’s got clutched in her hand. But all he can do is watch Pam. And think about how he would gladly run into a burning building, the flames melting his skin from his bones, if it meant he could save her. Take her in his arms.

And then Roy’s voice slurs over the feedback from the microphone and Jim’s world implodes. For a moment, he can’t breathe, and even though he can see everyone clapping, it sounds muffled. Empty. All he can hear is a high pitched whine. They’d been engaged for years but now there’s a date, June tenth, and Katie’s asking him something and he thinks he breaks up with her but he can’t be sure. Judging by her face, he might have been meaner than he’d meant to be.

When Michael starts giving him advice, Jim knows the day can’t get any worse.

***************************

He buys a ticket to Australia. No one thinks he’s actually going, and even he doesn’t know for sure. But he’d rather brave all the snakes, the jellyfish, the dingoes, and the desert than be anywhere near Pam’s wedding. If that makes him a coward, so be it.

***************************

“Excuse me, I’m fine with my choices.” 

Her choice: a man who would dissuade her from her passions, a man who doesn’t give a shit about what she’s interested in, a man who couldn’t be less interested in their wedding or anything to do with Pam Beesly.

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

***************************

“I just… Every time I turn around, all I can hear is flower arrangements and dress styles and dinner choices,” he says, pouring himself a cup of coffee, which he thinks might be his seventh or eighth for the day. That’s the problem with not sleeping. “I know I should just tune it out, but I mean, come on, am I right?” 

Toby nods, reassuring, his pen scratching across the paper as he listens to Jim’s venting. The coffee is bitter, clarifying, and Jim shakes his head while he swallows.

“You know what? Never mind. It’s mean of me to say anything; I’m sure she has a lot to deal with, so work’s probably the only place she has to plan. I’ll take that back.” Another nod, more pen scratching, and Jim can see that his name has been blacked out. All is well.

No one will know.

***************************

He’s leaving. For good. He has the job in Stamford, where he’ll have more clients, more responsibility, a better salary. Jan told him he could have the time off to go on his trip and that the sales manager job would be his upon his return; the future should look bright. It really should. But there are loose ends. There are things he needs to clear up before he can do anything.

He would gladly eat the plane ticket and the promotion if Pam wanted to be with him.

They take turns taking each other’s money. Pam’s poker face is absolutely terrible; she smiles when she has a good hand and frowns when she doesn’t, and he should be able to win every round, but he doesn’t care. He throws chips on the table and basks in her smile. When she laughs, he takes it in, commits it to memory, lets it wash over him under the fluorescent lights of the warehouse. The crease between her eyebrows is something he could study for days. He only has a few more hours. Shimmering dress, pulled back hair, glittering eyes, and it’s all he can do not to pull her against him in the middle of the crowded room.

Roy tells him to keep an eye on her. A pang of guilt twitches in his chest, because Jim knows it’s coming out whether he wants it to or not, and as soon as Roy pulls out of the parking lot it does. 

Without warning, it spills, frothing over, champagne bubbles popping in the light of the moon and ruining whatever joke she’d been trying to make. Her face falls. It’s not what he wanted to see. He walks away and so does Pam, both shell-shocked, both exhausted. But he can’t let it go—not without one more try, because she’s worth it, because he’s in love.  
When they kiss he thinks he might disintegrate. His atoms speed up, slow down, expand, contract, and maybe he dies a little bit right then and there as his mouth parts from hers. She tastes like wine and fresh air. She tastes like every hope he’s held in his chest every day since they met. Her skin is soft and her hair tickles his nose and her smile is only an inch away from his own, and both of them had been wanting to do that, and he’s not drunk, is she drunk?

No. 

“You’re really gonna marry him?”

A nod. A shattering sound. It might be his ribcage.

“Okay.”

He pulls away. Their fingers are touching, and then nothing, and then he’s gone.

***************************

Two hours go by. He’s alone in his room. His suitcase is open on his bed; he wonders what kind of clothes he should take to Australia, if maybe he needs to go to the Steamtown Mall to invest in some shorts. Maybe a hat. Definitely some sunscreen if he doesn’t want to come home with third degree sunburn. Do they make kangaroo repellent?  
She’s marrying Roy. Pam is marrying Roy and he’s done all he can and she’s marrying Roy.

Sitting on the ground, he starts making a list, his untidy writing a scrawl across the paper and really it doesn’t mean anything. There’s a knock at the door. Maybe Mark has lost his key again; maybe their neighbor needs some beer; really it doesn’t mean anything. A sigh, and he gets up, stretches, walks down the stairs, opens the door.

Freeze. 

It’s Pam. It’s Pam in her shimmering blue dress and her pulled back hair and her eyes red with tears and her mouth open and it’s Pam. He tries to think of something to say, anything at all, but she beats him to it and it’s really the only thing she needs to say.

“Jim.”


End file.
